Fishing with the Fam, Part 3

With Mom, Dad and Josh having departed Alaska, and the Ducks resuming their winning ways, things have returned to normal around here. Mom and Dad took off on Thursday of this past week but, with Josh hanging around a little longer, we decided to hit the local waters up one last time.

After dropping Mom and Dad off at the airport, we drove back North in search of grayling--a species I managed to hook lip with a few days earlier but which had evaded Josh. Things were looking up and the day delivered. Before long we all were hooking into fish.

Although we were catching fish, I managed to lose flies at an amazing rate. At one point, I had caught two fish and lost five flies. My brother and I both fish and tie flies with the philosophy that flies should be disposable--after all, it's better to fish near the bottom, in amongst the hazards where the fish are and lose a few flies than to fish tentatively and never hook lip. However, after spending all fall fishing the same particular pattern with great success and losing five of the seven remaining flies of that type in my box, I started to second guess my disposable-fly philosophy.

We were moving down river at a pretty good clip--cherry picking the prime holes and skipping over much of the rest. On one particularly good run, I stepped in a little below Josh and started to make my casts. Had it been anyone else, I'm sure Josh would have objected to me poaching his water; however, he would get his revenge. On my second or third cast, two very large fish followed my fly out of the depths and into the shallows only turning away at the last minute. On my next cast, I hooked the sticks on the far bank and broke off my fly. Josh didn't hesitate to step in and take a cast. If it wasn't his first cast, it was within his first five when he hooked into a nice coho.
It was a beautiful fish.
But it gets better. After having retied my tippet and fly, it was my turn to get after it. On my second cast I hooked into this guy.
But it gets better yet. By this time we could see a number of coho swimming around in the run. I'd guess there were twenty or so fish, but wouldn't be surprised if there were many more. We could tell it was on and The Wife wanted nothing to do with getting left out of the action. Before my fish was even released, she had started her casts. In short order, she hooked up with a fish every bit as large as Josh's, and much larger than mine.
In the end, each of us pulled a coho out of this little run with no more than ten casts, combined. Unbelievable! Deciding we had harassed this small school of fish enough, we moved on in search of a grayling for Josh, which he found without too much trouble.
All in all, one of the more successful days I've ever had on the water. There's something to be said for figuring it out. I'm not so naive as to think that I could go back tomorrow and repeat everything all over again (since I know I'd just as likely get skunked), but every once in a while it all comes together. While some fishing trips can blend into others and fade after the passage of time, there's been a handful of trips that really stand above the rest. Whether it's the fish, location, company, effort that goes into the trip, some other factor, or some combination of the above, last Thursday was one for the books.